Steve Jobs' Leadership Style: Apple's Culture, Strengths, Weaknesses

This case study analyzes Steve Jobs' leadership at Apple, contrasting it with Bill Gates' leadership at Microsoft, and explores its impact on Apple's organizational structure, culture, and success. It discusses Jobs' autocratic leadership style, his focus on innovation, and the company's decentralized structure based on the Matrix theory. The study also delves into Apple's organizational culture, emphasizing top-notch excellence, creativity, secrecy, and moderate combativeness. A SWOT analysis highlights Apple's strengths, such as innovation, leadership position, and brand equity, while also addressing weaknesses like customer expectations and incompatibility issues. Finally, the case study examines Apple's relation to Porter's Five Forces and Steve Jobs' motivation strategies, relating them to Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory.

Running head: APPLE UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF STEVE JOBS
Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1APPLE UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF STEVE JOBS
Introduction:
Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak found the company Apple in the year
1976. The company developed and sold personal computers. It was developed as Apple
Computer initially and was renamed as Apple Inc. The company has 115,000 permanent
employees in 478 Apple stores around the world. It has an online Apple store and iTunes
store. iTunes store is the largest music store in the world. Whereas Microsoft is a
multinational company of America with headquarters in Washington. The company
manufactures, develops, supports, licenses and sells software of computers and other related
services. Bill Gates and Paul Allen have found the company. Microsoft has 128,000
employees working worldwide. Apple became successful because of Steve Jobs influential
and innovative leadership quality. He was famous for his hard working and demanding
nature. He was yet a simple man. He was a leader with confidence, adaptability and acted
according to the situations. He had a very clear vision for the company. He offered an
autocratic style of leadership. He takes no input from his team members and takes all the
decisions single handedly. The leadership might sound harsh, but it had worked immensely
for Jobs. His innovative ideas have helped Apple to be the market leader in the world. Bill
gates on the other hand, offer a participative style of leadership (Khan, Alam and Alam
2015). He takes inputs from his employees to help in the overall success of the company. Bill
Gates enthusiasm and hard work has made the company successful. He was aware that
businesses face fluctuations and hence he believed adapting to such fluctuations will help in
the company’s success. Microsoft is one of the top most companies of software under the
leadership of Bill Gates. Unlike Gates, Steve Jobs did not work together as a team with his
employees. He chose the dictator style of leadership (Heracleous and Klaering 2014).
However, his techniques were difficult but they were effective for the company. Jobs had a

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very creative mindset. He recognized the skills in his employees, which was quite different
from that of Bill Gates. He kept motivating his employees. He created a workplace that had
only positive vibes. The leadership styles of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are very different from
one another. Steve Jobs had learned from his previous mistakes. Jobs could recognize the
upcoming challenges in the organization.
Discussion
Leadership style of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs with his democratic leadership style tries retaining his skilled employees.
He made four different teams to take care of different departments. The teams were iPhone
team, iPad team, iWatch team and Apple television team. He believed that each team would
produce effectively. He supported and encouraged creativity and innovations in the teams.
His style of work can be related to the Fayol’s principles of management which suggest-
1. Division of work.
2. Authority and responsibility.
3. Discipline
4. Unit of Command.
5. Unity of Direction
6. Subordination of Individual Interest to General interest.
7. Remuneration of Personnel.
8. Centralization.
9. Scalar chain.
10. Order.
11. Equity.

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12. Stability of tenure of personnel.
13. Initiative.
14. Esprit de corps.
Whereas Microsoft under the leadership of Bill Gates did not follow such principles and
failed to become the market leader.
Organizational structure
Steve Jobs followed such principles in order to make the company successful. The
structure of Apple is decentralized as the day-to-day operations and the higher authorities
take the decisions. Individual employee has the authority to take certain decisions of
expenditure and customer service. On the other hand, Microsoft has a more centralized
structure. The employees along with the leaders and managers take the decisions of the
company. Steve Jobs follow the Matrix theory of organization, which implies that the
employees can report to more than one manager (Jones 2013). The structure is complex but it
helps to achieve the ultimate goal of the company. It enhances the flexibility of the
organization. People from various departments work together in order to solve the issues of
the organization. This structure also creates confusion, as employees are not always sure of
whom to report. This structure increases the cost of the organization.
Hierarchy
The hierarchy of Apple refers to the management belonging from the top tier. Until 2011,
Steve Jobs had the highest position in the hierarchy. Apple Inc. possesses a hierarchical
structure. The characteristics of the corporate structure of Apple are-
 Spoke-and-wheel-hierarchy
 Product based Divisions.
 Weak Functional Matrix.

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Source: Done by the creator
Figure 1.
The economic environment of the company provides a huge platform for the employees to
excel in their career. The revenue of the company until 2012 was 156 billion dollar. This
figure denotes the influence and development of Apple. Apple Inc possesses an
organizational culture.
Chief Executive Officer
Senior Vice President
 Retail
 Internet software and services
 Software engineering
 Chief Financial officer
 Marketing
 General counsel
 Hardware technologies
Chief design
officer
Chief Operating
officer
Vice President
 User interface design.
 Communication
 Industrial design
 Environment, policy and social
initiatives.
 Human resource.

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Whereas the organizational structure of Microsoft is quite different from that of Apple.
Culture
The culture of the company encourages innovation and creativity. The business of the
organization depends on coherence and cultural support. The characteristics of the corporate
culture of Apple are-
 Top-notch excellence- The organizational culture of Apple suggests the company to
hire the best employees. Steve Jobs fired his employees who failed to perform well.
Thus, this tradition promotes, expects and appreciates high level of excellence among
CEO, Satya Nadella
Business Functions
 Business development Group
 Corporate, External and legal
Affairs
 Corporate strategy and planning
 Finance
 Sales, marketing and operation.
 HR group
 LinkedIn
 Marketing group
 Worldwide commercial business
Engineering groups
 Cloud and enterprise
 Office product
 Windows and devices
 Technology and research

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the employees. This trait of culture is institutionalized in the organization. For
Example: Rewards and recognition are there for the best performers.
 Creativity- The innovation and creativity of the employees helps in improving the
revenue generation of the company. This characteristic of the culture ensures enough
creativity in product and developmental methods. Such innovations are observed in
the features and designs of iPhone, Macs and iPads.
 Innovation- The organizational culture of Apple supports innovation. The company is
considered the top most innovative company of the world. Rapid innovation helps in
producing new products, which is profitable to the customers (Coleman 2013).
 Secrecy- This culture defines the human resource development of the company.
Secrecy is one of the strategies of the company. It is an approach of strategic
management that helps Apple to gain a competitive advantage. Employees keep the
information of the business within the organization. Thus, the secrecy policy of Apple
helps to maintain its unique selling point.
 Moderate combativeness- The culture of the organization shows moderate level of
combativeness. This feature is related to combative leadership approach of Steve
Jobs. He randomly challenged his employees to do certain activities within the
organization. The culture of the company although has changed to more sociable
under the leadership of Tim Cook.
Thus, the culture of Apple is strong and is much different from that of Microsoft. (Sohel,
Rahman and Uddin 2014). The culture of an organization varies along various
dimensions. They key dimensions that define the culture of an organization are –
transparency or opaqueness and simplicity or complexity. Apple falls in the area that
includes opaqueness and complexity, which means the income statement, cash flow and
balance sheet statement of the company, are disclosed to public. Microsoft’s

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organizational culture ensures resilience of the workforce and has the capability to fulfill
the needs of computer software and hardware products in the market. Another important
aspect of the organizational culture is the strength and the weakness of the company. The
SWOT analysis of the company explains the strength and weakness of the company.
Strengths:
 Innovation- The main strength of the company is its immense innovation in all its
products. Apple has launched products, which became popular. Initially they had
launched the MacBook. Thereafter the iPod, iPhone, iPad and iWatch were
launched which fulfilled the desires of the buyers.
 Leadership position- Apple is market leader in technology globally. They earn the
highest revenue and are the second largest manufacturer of smart phones. Apple is
the first company of US to have earned more than $700 billion in the year 2014.
 Brand equity- In order to maintain the position of market leader, Apple requires its
brand equity to be high. It is the top most brand of the world. Apple has a brand
value of $118.9 billion estimated in the year 2015.
 Distribution- Apple has 470 stores of its own situated in 17 countries of the world.
Apart from its stores, Apple sell their products through partners, premium stores
and online channels.
 Leadership- The key reason for the success of the company is its outstanding
leader and his leadership style. Steve Jobs was an inspiration to the marketers
around the world. The charismatic leadership of Jobs has lead to the success of the
company.
 Consumer focus- Apple develops and designs its products according to the needs
of the customers. They improvise the products keeping in mind the advancement

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of science and technology. They imagine and include features in their new
products, which the customers cannot even imagine.
Weaknesses:
 Customer expectation- Apple has a major share in the market. Consumers of
Apple brand have high expectations from the company. Maintaining the
similar level of expectation in every new product is challenging for the brand.
 Incompatibility- The main issue of the company is that most of the company’s
products are not compatible with any other accessories or software. Thus,
buying an Apple’s product implies that the buyer enters the universe of Apple.
This affects the buying decision of the consumers.
 Dependency on certain products- Apple has invented 7 to 8 unique products.
The other products of the company are in close competition with Google and
Microsoft. Thus, Apple’s dependency on its products is high. The high
demand of the products encourages and forces the company to enhance its
product portfolio.
Relation of Apple with Porter’s Five Forces
Steve Jobs have designed strategies to address the forces from the external world of
business. These forces can reduce the market share, profitability, potential of business
development and revenue generation of the firm. The five forces based on the framework of
porter points out at the intensities and strengths in Apple’s environment:
1. Competitive rivalry- Strong force
2. Bargaining power of buyers- Strong force
3. Bargaining power of suppliers- Weak Force
4. Threat of substitutes- Weak Force

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5. Threat of new entrants- Moderate force
Considering the forces, Steve Jobs have paid attention on the bargaining power of buyers and
competitive rivalry (Amrollahi and Akhgar 2013). This analysis supports the current position
of the company. The external environment has affected rapid innovation. Steve Jobs has
strengthened the position against the competitors to attract more customers to the products of
Apple. Whereas the five force model of Microsoft is-
1. Competitive rivalry- strong force
2. Bargaining power of buyers- moderate force
3. Bargaining power of suppliers- moderate force
4. Threat of substitutes- weak force
5. Threat of new entrants- Moderate force
Motivation
Steve Jobs has motivated his employees to pursue their role in the job successfully.
His strategies are related to the Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory. He has
realized three psychological state of work.
 Meaningfulness of work: Steve Jobs unlike any other leaders understood the
importance of a labor. This is called as the intrinsic motivation. This in turn
was derived from the variety of skills, identification of tasks, significance of
task, autonomy and feedback (Ali et al. 2014).
 Responsibility: Steve Jobs was well aware of the opportunities of Apple. He
had the ability to adapt to the changes. He also incorporated the learning into
his job life.
 Knowledge Outcomes: This is a very important aspect. Jobs gave a feedback
to each of his employees after every project in order to provide them the

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knowledge of their performance. He tried connecting the emotions of the
employees with the customer, thus, keeping them motivated and providing
them the purpose to work.
These characteristics of job helped in deriving the key elements to design and redesign a job.
Steve Jobs used these theories to design its product and redesign them in order to deliver a
unique product to the customers of the organization.
Two-factor Model
In order to understand better the motivation factor and attitude of the employees,
Steve Jobs had followed the two factors stated by Frederick Herzberg. This theory states the
certain factors that cause satisfaction in jobs and factors that cause dissatisfaction. Satisfiers
are the motivators and the hygiene factors are the factors of dissatisfaction (Yusoff, Kian and
Idris 2013). The satisfiers imply the psychological needs that act as an additional benefit to
the company. Whereas the psychological needs are the requirements that were to be fulfilled
but were not fulfilled as expected. The factors that Steve Jobs kept in mind were
achievements, increased responsibility, recognition, creativity, development, growth,
opportunity and challenges in work. The factors that de-motivated the employees are security
of job, status, salary, personal life, interpersonal relations, supervisions, conditions of
working, administration, benefits of the employees and policies of the company. Steve Jobs
praised his employees. They were recognized by Jobs for their outstanding performance and
accomplishments through promotion and bonus (Yusoff, Kian and Idris 2013). The work of
the employees was meaningful, motivating, challenging and interesting for his employees to
perform. The salary provided by the company is reasonable, appropriate and competitive.
Steve Jobs has also provided health care plans, work, and work equipments (Herzberg 2017).
Bill gates failed to recognize the talents and performance of his employees and thus, the

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retention rate of the company are very low. Although he provided the employees with many
plans and offers, he did not appreciate their work. The salary Microsoft provides is lesser
than that of Apple company.
Pestle analysis
There are certain factors that also affect the revenue generation of Apple Inc. these factors
are-
1. Political – Apple could have been the reason for growing anti-Americanism and
nationalism in China. This in turn would have reduced its share in the market. Apple’s
position of a leader in fields of music could enhance the antitrust concerns and
political pressure in order to break the organization and limit its share in the market.
2. Economical- Increased cost of labor could disallow the cost advantage of certain
products of Apple. The stagnant salaries of the middle class people can affect the
potential market of the company. Increased exchange rates can increase the rates of
the products in European and Chinese market.
3. Social- The highest growth in the spending of consumers will be in areas of Africa
where people are unaware of the Apple product. In places like United States young
people has less emotional attachment with the Apple product. The people of Europe
and United States criticize the expensive products of the brand.
4. Technological- Competitions like Microsoft, Samsung and Google has shown
potential in duplicating the products and services of Apple. Google has launched the
payment application in less than a year, which has the same characteristics as Apple
pay. This implies that the services and products of Apple are not unique anymore. The
products of Apple like Apple TV have a limited market, which affects the revenue
generation of the company.